73. If we recollect that all the Plebeians of Rome were not
Christians, and that all the Christians were not saints and
martyrs, we may judge with how much safety religious honours
can be ascribed to bones or urns indiscriminately taken from
the public burial-place. After ten centuries of a very free
and open trade some suspicions have arisen among the more
learned Catholics. They now require, as a proof of sanctity
and martyrdom, the letters B. M., a vial full of red liquor
supposed to be blood, or the figure of a palm-tree. But the
two former signs are of little weight, and with regard to
the last, it is observed by the critics - 1. That the
figure, as it is called, of a palm, is perhaps a cypress,
and perhaps only a stop, the flourish of a comma used in the
monumental inscriptions. 2. That the palm was the symbol of
victory among the Pagans. 3. That among the Christians it
served as the emblem, not only of martyrdom, but in general
of a joyful resurrection. See the epistle of P. Mabillon on
the worship of unknown saints, and Muratori sopra le
Antichita Italiane, Dissertat. lviii.